According to The Guardian Google is a major funder of the New America Foundation, some researchers of which criticized monopolies and lauded the EU for levying a record fine for Google for antitrust reasons. This apparently wasn't received well at the advertisement company and subsequently the team who did the research got the boot.
Now might be a good time to consider your dependence on all services GOOG.
The New America Foundation is one of the leading left-leaning policy groups in the US and is led by Anne-Marie Slaughter, an author, foreign policy analyst and political scientist. In June, Barry Lynn, a senior fellow who led the thinktank's Open Markets initiative, wrote a blogpost praising the EU's decision to levy a record €2.42bn ($2.7bn) fine on Google for breaching antitrust rules and abusing its market dominance. "Google's market power is one of the most critical challenges for competition policymakers in the world today," Lynn wrote.
According to The New York Times, shortly after the post was published Schmidt, who chaired New America until 2016, contacted Slaughter to communicate his displeasure.
The blogpost was temporarily removed from New America's website before being reposted. Days later, Slaughter told Lynn that "the time has come for Open Markets and New America to part ways", according to an email from Slaughter to Lynn obtained by the Times. Slaughter said the decision was "in no way based on the content of your work" although she she accused Lynn of "imperiling the institution as a whole".
New America has received roughly $21m from Google, Schmidt and his family foundation since 1999. The organisation's main conference room in Washington DC is called the Eric Schmidt Ideas Lab.
Lynn and his 10-strong team have now set up Citizens Against Monopoly. "Is Google trying to censor journalists and researchers who fight dangerous monopolies?" the website asks. "Sadly, the answer is: YES."
(Score: 5, Informative) by FatPhil on Thursday August 31 2017, @08:30AM (12 children)
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Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2, Insightful) by aristarchus on Thursday August 31 2017, @08:58AM (4 children)
I've done some other stuff. But seriously, if the site as a whole is compromised, none of that really matters.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 31 2017, @12:33PM
Aristarchus, I appreciate your views. They often act as a fine foil against your brethren of an opposite mindset.
Set up SalientNews and maybe I'll join!
But I think in this case the best option is to ride out the change. They need you here -- you provide value, even if they do not necessarily see it directly. Your comments are usually welcome...
If it was just a bunch of people agreeing with each other, there would be no reason to be here. I can get that nearly everywhere else as the default..
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday August 31 2017, @01:54PM
Stop trying to lock horns, that's all I'm saying.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 31 2017, @03:19PM
Either calm down, acknowledge you acted in bad faith, and seek the good graces of those in power OR
go off in a puff, make your own site, with blackjack and hookers
Annoying modding has always been the case, and the modding system is shit here as there are plenty of abuses that can happen. But what you gonna do about it?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday August 31 2017, @11:30PM
Aristarchus, I appreciate your views, about as much as I appreciate hemorrhoids.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 31 2017, @09:36AM (2 children)
I've seen a wave of moderation concern trolls crop up everywhere.
Their goal is to cast FUD on the admins / maintainers, find a fracture point and crack the community (JTRIG tactic). Just ignore these shills.
And yes, this place has shills. If you've been around since BBS days you can spot them a mile away. These flaming lamers reek of disengenuous snark and plausible deniability.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 31 2017, @04:55PM
Reset mod points to 5! I've seen pretty lame posts get upmods recently, I don't think the extra mod points are encouraging better mod behavior or really affecting the trolls either.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday August 31 2017, @05:39PM
I've seen a wave of moderation concern trolls crop up everywhere.
Yeah, we must be shills.
There's no way a bunch of people who are willing to vociferously criticize the administration of a website could end up on SoylentNews. That's unheard of!
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday August 31 2017, @05:37PM (3 children)
Turns out folks don't like it when Admins manipulate mods and karma.
This shouldn't be a surprise considering our history.
Pretty hypocritical coming from the folks that regularly lambast Reddit for similar behavior.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday August 31 2017, @10:44PM (2 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 31 2017, @10:56PM (1 child)
No, there are admins/moderators who are able to go in and make "corrections".
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday September 01 2017, @09:22AM
I've seen nothing inconsistent with "person receives -ve moderation, person's karma drops; person receives +ve moderation, person's karma rises".
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves